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AbstractIndividuals vary in their immune response and, as a result, some are more susceptible to infectious disease than others. Little is known about the nature of this individual variation in natural populations, or which components of immune pathways are most responsible, but defining this underlying landscape of variation is an essential first step to understanding the drivers of this variation and, ultimately, predicting the outcome of infection. We describe transcriptome-wide variation in response to a standardised immune challenge in wild field voles. We find that genes (hereafter 'markers') can be categorised into a limited number of types. For the majority of markers, the response of an individual is dependent on its baseline expression level, with significant enrichment in this category for conventional immune pathways. Another, moderately sized, category contains markers for which the responses of different individuals are also variable but independent of their baseline expression levels. This category lacks any enrichment for conventional immune pathways. We further identify markers which display particularly high individual variability in response, and could be used as markers of immune response in larger studies. Our work shows how a standardised challenge performed on a natural population can reveal the patterns of natural variation in immune response.

This is the first full-length study of sentential negation phenomena in French. Paul Rowlett assesses, from a generative perspective, the respective contribution made to the expression of clausal polarity by ne , pas , and elements such as jamais and personne . His conclusions have far-reaching implications, leading to the controversial hypothesis that, despite widespread belief, French is not a negative concord language.

Despite a thriving tradition of critical scholarship in United Kingdom-based sociology of work, Burawoy’s call for a partisan organic public sociology that is part of ‘a social movement beyond the academy’ and Bourdieu’s plea for committed scholarship in the service of the social movement against neo-liberalism have received scant attention. This article seeks to stimulate debate by presenting a framework for a left-radical organic public sociology of work based on Gramsci’s concept of the connected organic intellectual rather than Bourdieu’s expert committed scholar. The latter, it is argued, is ultimately incompatible with activist partisan scholarship based on democratized relations between researchers and researched. Participatory action research is offered as a methodological orientation that underpins and enables organic scholars of work to engage actively with the marginalized and labour in the co-creation of knowledge that aids their struggles for change.

Inbred mouse strains, living in simple laboratory environments far removed from nature, have been shown to vary consistently in their immune response. However, wildlife populations are typically outbreeding and face a multiplicity of challenges, parasitological and otherwise. In this study we seek evidence of consistent difference in immunological profile amongst individuals in the wild. We apply a novel method in this context, using longitudinal (repeated capture) data from natural populations of field voles, Microtus agrestis, on a range of life history and infection metrics, and on gene expression levels. We focus on three immune genes, IFN-γ, Gata3, and IL-10, representing respectively the Th1, Th2 and regulatory elements of the immune response. Our results show that there was clear evidence of consistent differences between individuals in their typical level of expression of at least one immune gene, and at most all three immune genes, after other measured sources of variation had been taken into account. Furthermore, individuals that responded to changing circumstances by increasing expression levels of Gata3 had a correlated increase in expression levels of IFN-γ. Our work stresses the importance of acknowledging immunological variation amongst individuals in studies of parasitological and infectious disease risk in wildlife populations.

This was a small scale study that focussed on whether the level of experience affected\ud the way that Community Mental Health Nurses (CMHN) assessed the risk of violence\ud from their clients. Ethical approval was gained and 22 participants took part in the\ud study. A mixed method approach was adopted utilising a quantitative phase followed\ud by a qualitative phase of data collection. Each were separately analysed and the\ud results were, that regardless of level of experience, the CMHNs believed that they\ud were the best at assessing risks compared to all other Multidisciplinary Team\ud members. Further, the more experienced the staff member the more control they tried\ud to impart on the perceived risk situation, whereas the less experienced members of\ud staff tended to withdraw and allow other members of staff to deal with the situation.\ud Finally it was found that although training was found to be important in helping the\ud staff to identify and manage risks; observation of live situations that were well\ud managed was more influential in their interpretation of how they should react. The\ud more experienced staff utilising more ‘life skills’ experience than the less\ud experienced.\ud These finding will have an impact on training and on the future recruitment of staff to\ud community positions.

Disasters, both natural and man-made, have been occurring with increasing frequency and effect\ud in recent decades in many countries around the world. Among them, Sri Lanka is yet to recover\ud from the effects of December 2004 Tsunami. Among many other reasons it has been identified\ud that lack of awareness of the mechanisms and systems for post disaster waste management is a\ud critical issue of concern. None of the Sri Lankan academic institutions related to the field offer\ud courses designed for the management of disaster waste within the country. Furthermore, none of\ud these institutions conduct awareness programmes aimed at the public on new mechanisms and\ud systems of management of disaster waste. To address these issues, this research aims to enhance\ud capacities to develop new mechanisms and systems for sustainable post disaster waste\ud management focusing on construction and demolition waste. To achieve the identified aim, the\ud research will explore current status of disaster waste management in Sri Lanka and a framework\ud will be proposed for enhancing capacities for sustainable disaster waste management in\ud economical, social and technological aspects. The research methodology includes a\ud comprehensive literature review, semi structured interviews and case study with selected\ud personal views on management of disaster waste management. In this context, the objective of\ud this paper is to present the current scenario of disaster waste management based on the results of\ud a secondary survey.

Thin epitaxial Fe films have been grown on vicinal GaAs(001) substrates and their remanent magnetic properties and the degree of substrate atom diffusion investigated using synchrotron-based photoelectron spectroscopy. The vicinal Fe films, though exhibiting greater As diffusion than their singular homologues, displayed better film quality both from the structural and the magnetic points of view. The spin-resolved valence spectra of the vicinal films resemble those for crystalline bulk Fe at lower film thicknesses than for singular films.

The Pulsed D.C. Magnetron Sputtering (PDMS) process has been investigated for the\ud deposition of the component layers that are used in the production of copper indium\ud diselenide, CuInSe 2 (CIS), thin film solar cells. PDMS can use high plasma densities with\ud long term arc free operation for the reactive sputtering of dielectric materials and can produce\ud films with good crystalline properties, even at low substrate temperatures. However, the\ud technique has not previously been applied to photovoltaic cell fabrication.\ud Customised powder target PDMS systems have been designed and constructed for\ud this work. Various operating parameters which affect the film characteristics have been\ud studied to allow optimisation of the sputtering process. This low temperature deposition\ud technique allows the use of flexible, low melting point substrates and can also reduce the\ud temperature induced damage to the layers associated with conventional D.C. and R.F.\ud sputtering processes. A typical CIS based cell consists of a molybdenum back contact layer, a\ud CIS absorber layer, a cadmium sulphide buffer layer and a zinc oxide top layer. In this study,\ud toxic cadmium sulphide was replaced by indium sulphide and the top layer employed indium\ud oxide which could be changed from intrinsic to highly conducting by adjustment of the\ud oxygen flow during sputtering. The deposited layers were characterised using various\ud analytical tools such as x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron\ud microscopy, UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometry, four point probe etc. Material characterisation\ud results indicated the suitability of using PDMS to deposit the component layers required in\ud CIS solar cell fabrication.